Conservation India

A lion-tailed macaque

In a precedent-setting “conservation swap” initiated by the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), and the Karnataka Forest Department, a 25 km long wildlife corridor disrupted by a 220 KVA power transmission line in Kudremukh National Park has been restored. The line was originally supporting the now defunct Kudremukh Iron Ore Company (KIOCL)’s mining operations, shut down by the Supreme Court in response to litigation by local wildlife conservation groups.

The Karnataka government… Read More

The forests of Anshi-Dandeli

Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary has seen several drastic changes in its boundaries. It was originally notified as a game sanctuary covering an area of 127 sq km on 10 May 1956. In 1975, post the euphoria of Project Tiger, it was declared a wildlife sanctuary and its area was expanded to 5,729 sq km. In 1987, to facilitate development projects – hydro-electric, a naval base, roads, transmission lines, mining and other industries – the area of the sanctuary came crashing down… Read More

A Slender-billed Vulture killed by Diclofenac poisoning

The results of a study published in 2011, five years after the ban in 2006, says yes, there has been a perceptible change in the use of diclofenac for veterinary use. But there is much more work to be done for the ban to be a success and for the country to see a rise in vulture populations.

The Indian subcontinent lost 95 per cent of its vultures in just 15 years. Of the eight species of vultures found in… Read More

Snow Leopards In the Spiti Trans-Himalaya

The Himalaya and Trans-Himalaya support highly endangered populations of species such as the snow leopard, the black-necked crane, Himalayan black bear, brown bear, red panda, wild yak, Tibetan antelope (chiru), Tibetan gazelle, Tibetan argali, Ladakh urial, musk deer, goral, serow, and takin, to name a few.

Conservation in these high altitudes has been relatively neglected even though the wildlife here faces a variety of threats:

• The snow leopard, wolf, and other carnivores are widely persecuted in retaliation against livestock

… Read More

Mangalajodi Wetlands

How do you convert a village of hardened poachers into committed conservationists? Read on to find out.

Mangalajodi village is situated on the banks of Chilika lake in Odisha (formerly Orissa). Chilika Lake is a brackish water lake, with lagoonal characteristics, spread over the Puri, Khurda and Ganjam districts of Orissa state on the east coast of India. It is Asia’s largest brackish water lake. It is the largest wintering ground for migratory birds in the Indian subcontinent. The lake… Read More

A tiger killed by a speeding vehicle in Bandipur

This Conservation India exclusive by Sanjay Gubbi, Assistant Director, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Member, State Board for Wildlife, Karnataka, highlights the conservation threat posed by roads and highways through PAs, showcases successful night closures of two major highways running through Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka and provides tips and inspiration for road closures in other protected areas.

Background: Impacts of roads on wildlife

India is in a phase of rapid infrastructural growth where improving the surface transport system is seen… Read More

The Kunthipuzha river

Long before the Internet era, a remarkable people’s movement saved a pristine moist evergreen forest in Kerala’s Palakkad District from being destroyed by a hydroelectric project. The battle for the now famous Silent Valley raged for over ten years and involved thousands of people who did not even live in the vicinity of the area that was to be destroyed. Although the campaign did not have any centralized planning, it was highly effective. The sustained pressure exerted on the government… Read More

Wolves in Maidenahalli

The Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), a subspecies of the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus), found in the Himalayan ranges, is a lanky animal with short fur, about the size of a German Shepherd Dog. An estimated 2000-3000 of these animals now survive in India, mainly in the states of Orissa, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. They are wide ranging, pack hunting predators requiring large home ranges. As agriculture expanded rapidly in post independent… Read More

Firewood collected in Bhadra

Relocation, resettlement and displacement of people have been carried out for several reasons in India and the history of such efforts goes back forty years. In India it is estimated that resettlement for conservation is a small fraction (less than one percent) of the more than sixty million people relocated for other reasons. The nature of these efforts has ranged from forcible eviction to voluntary relocation and they have ranged from abject failure to mixed success.

Relocation and resettlement of people… Read More

Devappa was born when the Jagara Valley was a hunting ground of the British. When he was small, the valley had elephants, gaur, and tigers. Within it were villages such as his, sparsely distributed with few people.

In 1951, this 198 sq km area was declared Jagara Valley Game Sanctuary. The population of the villagers inside the reserve was low and the extraction of forest resources was more for self-subsistence than for the market.

In the sixties, a reservoir… Read More